Fleur de Lis
by Dim Aldebaran
Summary: Death is repetitious: yet still it fascinates us, from the final breath to the final blow of vengeance. [AH, AB, HOMC, AOFC, heavy angst, slash & het]
1. I: Prélude

F L E U R

_de _

L I S

- Dim Aldebaran -

* * *

I. P R É L U D E

It was a tribute to his memory to come unseen: he had always appreciated subterfuge.

She stood after Juliet in the line. She didn't care that the person behind her kept bumping into her and saying 'excuse me' then staring for a moment as if not believing he could have ever talked to the air; didn't care that maybe/maybe-not he could hear her sniffles and that it reminded him of his little girl, left at home because funerals were too dreadful for children.

Tears had never been acceptable to him: and so they were not shed. Lies, however, were exchanged in great multitude, for those had been his subsistence in those few short years, and if they were enough for him surely they were enough for the starved, enough for her and enough for the family/friends that came to the feast.

The sun had the decency to hide behind a veil of clouds; his father wept before the heavens, and the eulogy dissolved in a tearfall, words and phrases carried along in a broken torrent of emotion.

She had never really noticed the father before this: she had never cared for straight men, preferring ones so crooked, so twisted, so bent out of shape they looked like Dada sculptures… but here, she could not help but flinch as each word broke like a whip across her back, each false virtue he recalled as good as a memory as she fell under the weight of the blows until she was curled on the ground by the casket, not sobbing but close enough for shame.

And after, after the eulogy, after the funeral, words echoed through her head: not the fictitious fluff of the father, but of those final moments:

Him, her, them: Butler drove. Holly by the window; Artemis in the middle, the French girl's head on his shoulder.

_There's something you should know_, he had said_—_(like Hell there is, she thought)—_something about **her**— _

_—lovers. _How blunt of her; like an ill-made mace, crushing the heart artlessly.

_No, she's— _

Fire; smoke; pain; as good as unconsciousness, though she had still heard the silence between the explosions, the lack of screams. He had died instantly; there had been no final words, no tearful goodbyes.

He was there and then he was gone.

There is no metaphor for such finality.

There were two funerals that day, for Artemis and the girl he had brought home; two families, mourning apart though their children had died together; two caskets, both empty.

She only wept for one.

It began to rain: no one wept for her.

* * *

Now, I've gotten some Very Mean Emails regarding this piece, so I'm giving _full_ warnings here so it's your own bloody fault if you read it:

There is slash, femslash, sexual content, suicide and suicide references, swearing, anti-religious remarks, and general "immoral behavior" regarding just about everything you can think of. None of it is gratuitous; it's writing, pure and simple. The style is also different from the norm, which one person found "insulting to the very nature of literature" and another "the sort of thing you get when you select words at random". If you don't like it, bugger off. If you do, I'll just assume you've read the works of James Joyce.

Now, the nice stuff: I've tried to end this at 12,000 words, 20,000 words and 30,000 words respectively, but I love this piece to death so it looks like it will be novellength. It is in several fanfic challenges I am in, including fanfic100, 30angsts and 12LH. This is beta'd by the wonderful Natasha, who corrects my terrible French and pokes me when I'm having too much fun. I also owe some thanks to people like Whilily, since they're wonderful and encouraging even when they're raising their eyebrows at me.


	2. II: Malédiction & III: Le Lis d'Ile

FL E U R

_de _

L I S

- Dim Aldebaran -

* * *

II. _La_ M A L É D I C T I O N _de la _F L E U R

It was an awkward way to live, without the memories, but Trouble managed. They all did, in the end. Besides, it suited him: he had always been an awkward boy before that first rush of the hunt.

The confident, the arrogant—? They never quite mastered voluntary ignorance. Perhaps that was why they had the money, the fame, the glory; but he didn't want those things, no, not anymore, so perhaps that was why he went to the café alone, why he bought his women at the corner and forgot them after.

But he could live with himself—

—others could not.

They were still friends, of course—there had been no blame game, no lackluster life lessons. Every once in a while, though—they'd ask, in that foolish little way of theirs, half-ashamed, like a child, asking for a shoe to be tied for them after they had tripped and cried.

They'd ask; he'd answer.

He came for tea on a secondhand request. He sat on a stained sofa; she curled up in an understuffed plaid armchair, which was tattered as if a cat had frequented the place but had died some years ago. The lights were dimmed for an intimate air, though he knew it was really to save a few on the electric bill.

They chatted, passing control of the conversation like a hot potato, back and forth between each other. She didn't know he was a cheater in the game, didn't know he liked to play pretend: she was too busy adjusting that mask of hers, the starry smile and bright eyes, overdone like a geisha.

He looked at her lips and thought of sin—

—and then at her eyes and thought of salvation.

The pierce of the kettle's whistle broke the moment; she passed the potato to him and left, leaving it to sear his hands with such obtuseness.

Curious, he moved to her chair. A permanent depression had indented the seat for her derrière. How often did she curl here, how often did she cry, clutching that worn blue duvet?

By the seat was a lamp; a fine chain dangled from it, gilded paint curling off it like wisps of baby hair. He pulled on it: on, off; light, dark; day, night; dream, nightmare. It got old pretty fast, so he picked the paint off the lamp base like an old scab; it peeled off, like the rind of an old orange.

stifled sobs from the kitchen, muffled with a dishrag.

—next to the lamp, like a bad neighbor, a picture and its frame, a picture of her and the blue-eyed boy, together, laughing/learning; tepid teaching on her part, but neither cared, just elementary lessons on life and love.

the sobs slowed; there was a rustle of cloth as she wiped her face clean of such heresies.

She had taught the boy to be real—

—she had not forgotten him.

He flipped the picture down, giving the blue-eyed boy a fine view of the plastic table.

She came in; margaritas. They toasted with a cheap plastic _clink_.

"To life," she says—

—"To memories," he responds.

She froze, halfway through setting the picture upright.

"So now you know," he said—and left.

Encounter at the door: she held it shut, preventing escape to more decadent climes. "You're supposed to help me!"—trembling tone and tears.

"Help yourself," he replied, and left unhindered.

* * *

III. _Le _L I S _d_'Î L E

She left the underground: they all knew where she had gone.

Her way was made clear to her— _midnight__ escapes_, Foaly had said, aboveground permit in hand, _sleepovers, teenage trysts_, _or perhaps escape alone suffices— _

It wouldn't be reason enough for the boy in the picture: he would need to rationalize it to himself, wouldn't he? He would need reasons, rational reasons, a _why _for every _what_.

She cited vengeance. Other causes were too noble for the broken.

She walked the long hallway to the pods, alone but for her thoughts, and though she drowned she drowned in that which welcomed her: thoughts of darkness, thoughts of death, thoughts that filled the chamber like water into a sinking ship.

It would be a long walk, perhaps: but wasn't it always?

Perhaps not: perhaps some paths were through those fabled fields of gold, or the road less traveled, or a yellow-brick road.

But perhaps so.


	3. IV: Parce Que V:Le Romarin VI: Le Jardin

F L E U R

_de _

L I S

- Dim Aldebaran -

* * *

IV_. à_ C A U S E _des _F L E U R S

Juliet's eyes were old when she opened the door: but it wasn't Holly's fault, no, not this time. Memory had made quite the tether to life.

Juliet leaned against the doorway, sagging as an old woman might. Her fingers, long and white, knobby, almost arthritic, wrapped around the doorframe like frayed ropes whitened by sea salt. "I expect you're here to see the urn," she said at last. Her voice was hard: but does the sword choose to be tempered, does it choose to be sharp and fatal?

It began to rain. When her hair, short by habit, was lank across her forehead, she spoke into the silence of the rain: "Weren't we sisters once?"

A grin across Juliet's face, flying by like a starling, there and gone. "It would appear," she replied, examining her guest, "that we still are."

Juliet made tea, more for effect than taste. It was served in the parlor; the paint curled from the walls, forming little hummocks of faded color along their bases. The furniture was covered with sheets, dust covers, shrouds: the place seemed a ghost of a home…

…though Juliet had a home, at least, with white ghosts of memory for company; she could visit them at any time, wander the halls until they were the very corridors of her mind—

The platter rested on the table; true silverware, an heirloom of sorts, though there was no heir to pass it down to. She appreciated the silver, and did her best to forget the fact.

Juliet served the tea, though she herself did not drink. Belgian porcelain rested between her pale fingers, the dead clutching at a memory lest they forget, a memory of grander times—"Madame… Madame broke first."

She nodded, sipping. She could imagine: before, Angeline's mind had been like Juliet's teacup but broken, shattered, useless but for a humoresque to pass on and laugh about generations later when the tragedy was far enough away for comedy. All those years ago, she had collected those pieces, and forced them together, binding them together with her magic, a weak adhesive at best. The blame for the second breaking was on her: the regret was a knife to the arm, cutting out delicate traceries in her flesh.

Juliet's fingers stroked the silver, around the curves. "She had an accident with a mirror."—'accident' because what madmen do is never what they intend, of course. "Monsieur followed, because he's the falling sort." She looked down at the cup; it was like (another) ghost in the gloom of the rain outside; the Domovoi, the French girl—? "It never rained at any of their funerals. I hate the rain. It never comes when it should—stay tonight, we can talk tomorrow. The rain is such terrible business."

* * *

V. _Le_ R O M A R I N

The night twisted with serpentine shadows, coiling around her until even the sheets were hot folds of darkness, enclosing in slow suffocation—

This is why she could not forget:

Around her were likewise curled ghosts, wrapped so tightly in on themselves she could scarce see them (though she knew they were there—), ghosts that would lay so still they seemed dead again until you breathed and then they would uncurl, long, white ribbons like in a flower-girl's tresses, drowned in the river but still, the ribbons were white… the ghosts rose, then, on their own accord, for she could not subdue the ghosts, the voices, the memories—

The shadows uncurled; and she did not, tucking her head between her knees in fetal position, embryonic madness, fledgling fear. Her jaws ached from clenched teeth, and with each rising ghost she would clench a little more and the pain would trickle up her jaw to her temple (it hurt to fear—)

The ghosts whirled like white flamenco dresses, spinning out madly as they flew about—_flamenco swans, _she thought, _flamenco swans, flamenco swans, watch them dance, watch them fly, watch them die— _

Another—the ghost came and whispered it softly, into her heart, so soft even the sensitivity of one broken and shattered had to strain—but she had a brighter memory now, sliding before her eyes, clouds in summer sky, golden fields, like the song:

_fields of gold— _

…_and they walked in fields of gold… _

_…fields of barley (and of rye?—no:) _

_fields of sun-soaked barley, beneath the jealous sun where she didn't belong but she's there; how it glimmered, how it shone, another sort of gold, maybe he'd like it better— _

…_fields of gold, aurum potestas est— _

Tighter she curled; but the white ghosts came and wrapped their arms around her like a wet blanket so she shivered, so cold, she might just freeze instead—

_…let us lie in fields of gold, here's the moment, you know it's right— _

The ghosts laughed; what a child she was! what a child, with her dreams of white and gold—

_…you know it's right, I need this, I've never known before… _

_…let us lie here a time, beneath the jealous sun, let us lie here a time, let us lie together— _

The ghosts embraced her with sordid sympathy; they were as the rain, faces in the rain (so strange—) watercolors, washed away by the rain.

How could she forget what never was?

They encircled her in a haze; as if she was about to cry like she had so many times before. As she slipped in she knew it to be sleep, but what heresy it would be, to fall asleep in the arms of memories—

—but what heresy it was to even remember.

* * *

VI. _Le_ J A R D I N

Juliet remarked on her eyes over breakfast: "_Et tu, Brute?" _

Seamless smile; small, tight. "Never thought you the Shakespeare type."

…shrug. "I have plenty of time for everyone, these days…all the time in the world; you'd think I'd have run out of lines by now, but no, this player is still upon the stage—"

She tried the marmalade; sharp, bitter, a memory of days when irony was a delicacy, not _le plat principal_. "The library still open?"

A nod.

The toast was cold; it was like a bitter loam down her throat, wet, slimy marmalade having saturated it to its entirety, slightly gritty, thick. She considered the tea; watching as Juliet poured cream, watching as it bloomed like a white flower in the dirt, bloom and wilt and fade and die. "Did you know?" she asked suddenly.

Juliet looked down; like a tightrope, balancing. "I don't think any of us know anything, really. Least of all about him." Hollow, like a drum, last relic of a world of ardor, those primally ignorant times: that was her laugh. "He didn't know a damn thing either. Do you remember when—" and off again. A grin: "Defeated the purpose there, didn't I?" Juliet got up.

She followed.

The tea cooled; and no one likes cold Darjeeling.

In passing, the rooms were a labyrinthine cemetery: all was covered with white sheets, ghosts, new, heretical ghosts that hadn't even the life to move, cold company for the living pair that walked between them.

The ghosts swirled by her; each passing room through the doors, open but never entered, no mystery left. Memories in each laughed; more at themselves than her.

And through and through: Juliet had an ugly laugh, she realized, like a mother-in-law. It was his room on the right; she remembered, and felt the passage of something sane from her mind, something that had cracked but hadn't fallen, not before now.

The beds had no words for her (_no words for what never was—)_; nor did the pictures, haven spoken their thousand words to those who hadn't cared to listen.

The final door: Juliet walked through, and Holly with her, two trespassers, pilgrims before Hades (or perhaps Persephone; but neither were the chatty type), stirring the tattered dust in their wake and letting it settle in slow spirals.

The place was a Victorian construct: she could trace the grandeur even beneath the white shrouds, dead glories (_Ozymandias_, her mind whispered—) There was a certain majesty, now, a certain majesty that it could never have had before with its gold flatulence.

She sunk through them, quicksand; the memories shifted around her to let her past as she slipped in further.

"I can open the windows, if you'd like," Juliet murmured. The room had such perfect acoustics that those words became enough to break the ice so she could breathe:

"No—but thank you." He had always had them closed; they preferred the darkness for what they did—

The piano was there, covered, but she could trace the keys through the sagging of the white shroud. She wondered why she could hear the music, the soft cry of Chopin and the bleeding perfection of Mozart but not see the player—perhaps he had disappeared into the piano, a far kinder end than the red scream of the bomb—

Like a bad chord: "Everything's covered. He was such a private person, I don't think he'd want us to see—" to her: "Though we saw anyway."

An alcove in the wall: _the conservatory, _she remembered, _he called it the conservatory though only one ever played there. _There were windows there: she opened them and had an odd sense of vindication from the sun bleeding gold across the room so she closed them again. Even that small bit of light had burned the place of some of its mystery, Juliet finding a small security camera nestled between mirror busts of Pallas Athena upon the mantel.

"Anything good?"—and a laugh, _nevermore, Lenore—_Juliet turned from it and brushed the spine of a book, dust stirring. Had it shivered? "Have you read _Meditations_? I didn't like it. I couldn't cry for a month."

"Too much?"

"Too little—" She found another book, seducing old memories from the pages with an ivory finger that still glimmered of town, street-corner. "No emotion."

"Wasn't that the point?" It felt strange to correct anyone in a tomb, so she looked away: the cello had sweet curves to its sides, a Renaissance courtesan, Bianca; the piano the sweep of grandeur, Victoria, God Save The Queen; clarinet, secret, soft, the chaste girl you only touch once and then she's gone, Hester—

"The violin?"

There had been something seductively singular about it for him: even the majesty of the piano could not compare, no, not the soft chatter of the flute or the empires rising and falling from the bell of the trumpet.

He would play Rachmaninoff for her, slow and sweet and smooth, but with a flavor to it, a sort of tang or aftertaste, old honey, the rich sort in which Alexander had been laid, or the pale desert honey of Palmyra, or offerings beneath the Roshōmon.

Juliet moved to a shelf. There was a small chest, inconspicuous and unintending. She opened it; within were shards of wood, curving like pieces of a broken porcelain doll; strings curled like locks of hair given to a lover, but forgotten at the bottom of the jewelry box. It was a Stradivarius: this would have killed him if the bomb hadn't.

"He had it with him. The Limerick man did his best."

—_a casket_, she thought, _that's all that's left of him, that smear on the road wasn't his corpse, this is, it was his soul, not the blood, not the blood— _

She looked close, tracing the woodgrain patterns, like the sweep of skin over hollows or knobs, like a memory, returning fast—

"Yours," Juliet said. "I have an entire house; I can spare you a broken violin."


	4. VII, VIII, IX, X & XI

F L E U R

_de _

L I S

- Dim Aldebaran -

* * *

VII. L O T U S E A T E R S

Sisters parted: the ghosts did not. Her attempt at running away was not a butterfly within the net (no more storms that world away—) so they followed, and laughed amongst themselves, oh-so cruel, junior high.

She took to her bed; the sheets, old but soft, were a watered sort of nepenthes: better comfort than the rich wine of the violin, no, she couldn't drink herself to oblivion—

Trouble came, questioned. She pretended she didn't know: he pretended he didn't care and went away for a while, watching from afar, wondering the what _did she do?_ the who _did she talk to?_ and the why _is she like this?_

There was someone to answer the questions: he knew all, and what he didn't know he could find with the ant and the honey, Daedalus. Marvelous, really, how they could talk everyday and not say a word—

They had not spoken since the funeral.

"Holly's back—"

"I know."

"—yes, but you see—"

"She pretends."

"—more than she used to—"

"She doesn't hide it now."

"—her eyes, you have to see her eyes—"

"Empty."

"—not just that—"

"She _thinks_ she's empty."

"—there's something else—"

"A souvenir."

"—I didn't see anything—"

"I will."

"—thanks, but—"

"_Adieu_."

* * *

VIII. W A T E R F E A T U R E

Foaly had never come before: but the lock was easy, and she was so alone it could have been murder.

He brought cookies in a little basket and set it by the bed, little red riding hood, missing grandma's smile but admiring the teeth.

She picked one out with blue frosting; it crumbled a bit, blue and brown on ivoried sheets. The place smelled of sweat and tears, and he crinkled his nose.

He watched for a while: but like most watchers he got bored with how this cookie was crumbling and reached for another: "Like them?"

"They're fine."

"I made them." —offering to a silent god.

Laugh: heavy, like a parsnip. "Bullshit."

He took it from her hand; crumbs fell, pooling in a fold of cloth. "How vulgar: I thought you above such gratuities."

Even though the cookie was all neat and collected on the sheet, her fingers kept moving back and forth against each other. He wondered how long it would take for her fingers to wear through each other.

Brusque, now, he took the basket and set it on the floor. "Trouble's worried."

—no response. Her eyes were open; listless, back and forth against the back wall as if it were a map of the world.

"You can't keep doing this."

—and she kept it on, the silence peculiar to the insane.

He tried for the blunt, the clichéd: "You're a fighter; you can't let this defeat you."

—gladiator's death, when at war with the world. Death had never been an instantaneous thing.

There was a piano; he knew it wasn't it because it had dust, staining it the color of old chocolate. He asked anyway: "This his?"

No reaction, no shepherd for the lost.

He pressed down on E, Beethoven, then, E-flat, soft and simple, then again and then down and it was deep and piercing like a night of stars. He let it flow; the stars wheeled and there was dawn as he finished, _meno lento_, Für Elise.

Reaction: "His favorite."

Equal but opposite: "I thought he hated the piano."

Smile, remembering: "Violin child."

He nodded. "Some things require the scientist and not the musician."

It was wrong but she didn't reply; she wasn't the sort for vengeance, not the sort for anything but a weak 'bullshit', quiet enough that he could pretend he hadn't heard and continue on: "I heard that there was something else."

"The Stradivarius." —as a whisper, as a sigh. She lifted her head up and she slid a box from under her pillow. He opened it and there it was, brunette curls of wood fiber. He turned them over in his hands and he had the odd feeling that he should thank her for letting him see, but he didn't and that was that.

He turned with the box, turned to go and could not turn back, no, could not turn back since he knew what he would see: and he heard a sort of soundless cry, the sort that people can't hear but feel because they know it will happen even before it sounds, and he tried to ignore it like he ignored everything else, but you can't ignore heartbreak, no, can't ignore the deafdumbblind.

She sat up; her eyes were open mirrors that reflected something that he could almost remember. "Please—"

He tipped his hatless head, and left.

The cradle will fall.

* * *

IV. M O N K S H O O D

He had nothing by way of a life, so he went to it: the pieces fit, perfect puzzle.

He played_ The Death of Äse_, Grieg and felt the sweetness spread like honey in the mouth, sticking long after the pleasure wore off; he played _Flight of the Bumblebee _and felt the blood rush through him hotter than any drugs and considered the addiction; then _Vocalise_, Rachmaninoff and he felt the disharmony within itself and smiled: and frowned. Artemis never could bear a violin that couldn't play _Vocalise_;yet here it was, without that deep, throaty whisper Rachmaninoff required.

No Stradivarius—

—no truth.

Lies were more interesting, anyway: though, really, Artemis had been obliged.

* * *

X. P E N N Y R O Y A L

Her head had a peculiar slant to it; as if she might slip into a slumber (or to death—) or simply stay, staring, or pop up in a sort of reanimation. "No tricks."

His grin: crooked as his ways. "I am no farce, no _le sceptique de la vie_. Would he have a violin that couldn't play _Vocalise_?"

"It broke—"

"—and I fixed it." Grin: snake-oil salesman, satisfied. "Not the mechanic, ah, _non, mademoiselle_—_un sage_, next, ah _oui_?" He took up the violin and played a reeling hornpipe, one that made his shadow dance on the wall.

She sunk into the pillows, repelled, repulsed.

"—and so the violin beau/ fell to a depth so low—"

She curled in; the violin swung and swirled, but did not sing.

"—as that great violin beau/that struck a terrible blow—"

Curling, curling, curling inward, the sheets surrounded but did not comfort, sanctuary/purgatory, and long after he left the very flames licked at her feet, the fires of guilt from Father Lucifer himself—

* * *

XI. _de _L Y S

Trouble woke with a crash. He heard the snap of carrots and went to the kitchen entryway. "Is she—"

"Pitiable, as always."

"—how is she—"

"Lovely tomb she had there, even smelled like one."

"—is she alright—"

"Moping; such an emotional creature, really."

"—how's her—"

"Check the flight log."

"—to where?"

Smile: " Paris."


	5. XII: Le Rue & XIII: En Face de la Rose

F L E U R

_de _

L I S

- Dim Aldebaran -

* * *

XII. _le _ R U E _au_ J A R D I N

Paris: it stunk of humanity. Prostitutes with short skirts instead of red ribbons; mylar wrappers flashing silver and gold in the gutter; dark men with darker intents, shadowed glances spreading out behind them in a wakeof suspicion on the Styx; newspapers blown by a nicotine wind; cars washed away by their own flood; monsters in high heels and high fashion in high Gothic horror.

Age seeped from the little girl who sold flowers only to see them thrown to the gutter ten paces away and she goes to pick them up and sell them again with those sad gray eyes of hers; from the pale man who walked with clouded eyes and gloomy heart and hazy memories and precipitous worries; from the painter who made each man David, each woman Venus de Milo, and fancied each reflection Botticelli; from the woman who walked with a gun in her hand and a knife in her heart.

She walked, but did not run. There was no urgency in death.

Furthermore: her eyes did not wander to and fro like a peculiar fish, for she herself did not wander but rather strayed in an organized sort of disorientation, in one direction and then another, studiously so.

She found nothing with the fall of night: so still she wandered amidst the terrible shadows cast upon the street, demons that followed in twisting dances and twining nightmares as she past by the streetlights.

Each road darker than the last: each shadow more spindled, more tangled, more tortured, and still she walked, onwards across no sea but dreams to no shore but death—

And she walked: foot in front of the other, sand grains so silent they might not be falling at all, butterfly across the cheek, was it there, or was it not—

* * *

XIII. _en _F A C E _du _R O S E

Beneath a bridge: no tolling troll, no Scylla. There were other invalids as well, piled in a heap like a child's toys in the attic, forgotten, ragged, but still so covered with dusty memories it was all that kept them alive.

She found a corner to herself, away from the general huddle; she curled tightly into herself beneath an old rug, Persian patterns faded but still warm against the Parisian night.

_—_but no, she couldn't sleep. Mist curling from the river beaded her face with little diamonds, their fire extinguished by the cold. The ghosts uncurled into the white ribbons of angels, unraveling but then weaving themselves into a second _Vocalise_, sweet and rich and sad like a rose blooming and wilting as the petals fall to the floor and the scent curls upwards but it reeks of death, not life, but you love it anyway for it smells just as sweet—

She stirred: the mist from the river shifted to let her by, seraphim laughing solemnly.

She stirred: the rug fell from her shoulders, no coat of many colors, no coat of dreams.

She stirred: and she was alone upon the streets like a bad Utrillo but so much darker, capturing those thoughts his picturesque therapy could never quite express.

She stirred: and she walked down those streets. There was pale mist and dark shadows, all part of the same dream but it all felt different, buildings blotting out the stars like a vanGogh mistake, history bleeding from the gaping gargoyle mouths and piercing steeples.

She stirred: and so did the ghosts, music sweetening, tea at the bottom of the cup, last few drops always were the best.

She stirred: and cried out, running now along those long streets that branched out into fractal systems, Mendelbrot sets of roads and alleys that split and twined and broke apart only to intersect once more—

She stirred: but _Vocalise_ drifted away, not on the Loire or the Styx or the Lethe but on time's own river, drifting away until she could scarce hear—or perhaps it was _her_ that drifted away, her that drifted with the irrevocable flow of the river until that they reached an end to the river which flowed to a circle, that repetition of the finite eternal: her life, her very_ life_—

She stirred: and stilled.


	6. XIV, XV, XVI: les roses

F L E U R

_de _

L I S

- Dim Aldebaran -

* * *

XIV. _la _R O S E _du_ M O N D E

It was three: but the bars were open. It was Paris, after all. No one turned to look at her when she entered, drowning selfishly in themselves. All was silent but for the drunken piano player and his lurching rendition of_ Für Elise_.

The barstool creaked as she sat down, but it was high enough that they didn't ask for ID; she looked old, she supposed, old enough for the whiskey she ordered. This thought made her vanity crinkle like old paper, quietly, with none of that fresh crackle as a young woman's might have.

She drank one; sipping once, twice, thrice, fire down the throat; it burned, though it doused her memories sufficiently that she felt no guilt in the second glass, nor repentance in the third.

_Für Elise _became an anthem of sorts: she hummed along brokenly, notes oozing from her throat like the cheap whiskey down it, tapping her foot and staggering the rhythm until the piano player moved on to drunken jazz (_how it ought to be played—_)

She went to the piano and said something quite rude in Italian; or Latin, she wasn't sure. Italian was her language of choice for gratuities: it made vulgarities so graceful, but Latin would lend her class.

He smiled and said something in return. Being drunk, and, furthermore, broke, she acquiesced.

He hurried, not wishing for her to sober up. Must be the desperate sort: the fallen had a thing for innocence lost.

_—_but he played the piano. When she entered the apartment, she saw the beer stains on the keys, the greenglint under the pedals.

But no matter. He undressed her studiously, methodically, almost the pedophile to her small frame. After, it was a quick affair that left her clutching for memories long after she fell asleep.

* * *

XV. _la _R O S E _de la_ G U E R R E 

The hangover left her drunk enough on pain that she didn't notice the scent of his other lady, Mary Jane: though it would have been a petty jealousy, at best.

She found a blouse on the floor: not hers by the fit, but hers by appointment. It fell over her shoulders like a shawl of cheap linen, and indeed falling far enough that it went to her knees, pale cream by knobby tan. There were pants, though she desisted: they wound about on the floor like snakes, diamondback beerstains, scaly wrinkles, too long.

The light was weak: thank God he wasn't the Impressionist man with wide wide windows for _le plein air_. The magic was gone from her anyway: bleached to the fine white of shells on the beach, beaten and broken.

Pictures on the wall: no frames, too pricy for the poor, hung by a nail and a prayer. They were mostly photographs, too faded to be anything but memories: a boy on his bicycle, two children running down the sidewalk, Goldilocks with curls and a cake. All childhood things: sweet it must have been, or perhaps just sweet in comparison—

—though the comparison is all that matters.

The corners curled in and out, casting peculiar Picasso shadows on the wall, sharp against the general haziness of the stains and memories, more clear than the photographs themselves.

She followed the wall: a lad and lass holding hands under the table, picture taken unknowingly from behind; a boy holding up a tooth, even without color it was red; two young men balancing on a fountain's rim, flicking coins into the water that glinted in the air like misplaced stars, faces noon and night, locks gold and black, but both were so pale, so beautiful, they could have been gods—

* * *

XVI. _la _R O S E_ du _C O E U R

Madness was routine: she took it with a calm fate obviously did not expect, instead slipping off the blouse and laying down on the bed, wondering if he could feel the pounding of her heart through the madness of whatever dream he had.

They did not match for size: but they complimented each other nonetheless. She… fit, not so much like a doll but a sculpturette, aesthetics for him to enjoy his own way, art for art's sake since art was quite obviously useless otherwise. There was something in this she was attracted to: it was not love, but something else, something that had all the illusion of it… not lust either, she _knew_ what lust was, knew it how mixed so potently with the milder wines, and this wasn't lust, lust was what she had dreamt and never did.

Perhaps it was just the contact: flesh against pale flesh, making it so easy to pretend—

When he stirred, his eyes were pale against his skin, translucent green that could have been frosted grass, opened and shared a little smile and got up: his hair was no particular blonde, but rather platinum and gold mixed together like a poorly tossed salad, and the curly Irish variety—and his body too: thin, lean, gaunt, the very artistic notion.

She stayed: still, warm. She could see the piano from there: looming out of the off-white walls like black rain from a white thunderhead. In the air before it she traced music, sketching and shading and coloring until at last she could hear Kinderscenen.

He came back with tea: fine delights. "—you seem like the sort," he explained, passing it to her on the bed. She curled sheets around her and sat up against the headboard: she had to look childish, even to him, sipping chamomile like a schoolgirl on a sick day, or perhaps that's what he liked after all.

"Hungry?" he asked—she noticed the English and the accent of Ireland that can never quite leave, and pondered the friends of the blue-eyed boy, wondering if she had been the only teacher of friendship or simply one of many.

"—no," she replied, "no, not very."

He shrugged; leaving the bedside and producing toast from somewhere in the kitchen, eating it plain, and it crunched oddly in the silence: she decided that she hated loud foods.

It had a sort of comfort to her: sitting on a filthy bed with only a few sheets between her and goosebumps in a strange man's apartment—but he had paid her tab and she had seen the piano and this was all somehow more intimate than anything she had ever known before.

She looked down at the tea and the teabag that had been reused five times before: little wisps of steam came curling from the Styx murkiness, dissipating.

He moved towards the piano, pausing to select pants from the floor, boxers already on. He was very comfortable with her, or perhaps just with himself, not knowing her enough to particularly care. The thought stung, like the hot tea she just spilt on her thigh.

"—you don't seem like the sort who'd mind," he explained, sitting down at the bench. He kicked a bottle out from near the pedals; it spun out, greenglint, _haha_, spin the bottle—He played around a bit, mostly Schumann, whimsical airs from _The Book of the Young_, toy soldier marches, petite picnics, such childish things.

She watched from the bed: she didn't listen, ignoring such frivolities, remembering _Vocalise_ and the Stradivarius; but she watched the pale fingers as they stroked across the keys. He was more intimate with the piano then her, she saw, and she had the sudden temptation to sit next to him and play some of the weak chords Artemis had taught her on one of his little whims—

"This isn't real," she whispered, and said it again, louder, not to herself but to the piano man, and he heard the second time and knew it to be true: he knew what he played were only games, and he changed tunes to more Schumann, _Phantasie in C minor_, passing through the rippling chords like a man through the rain as it thundered and lightninged and he didn't mind at all. He knew the theme of the music, the fall, Garden of Eden in his own backyard, fall from innocence his own paradise lost.

She followed the flow for a while, letting herself fall with the music but you can never fall all the way with music, you can come close to the apple but you can't taste it, no, only see and sin—that's the way with real music, you follow the melody and fall downwards until the rope snaps taut and your heart is bruised and aching but you stop, and your ascent is quick, bungee jumping, and they'll all ask afterwards how it was and you'll smile and say it's not to your taste but you lie because you know you love the fall—

He stopped, she stopped. She thought she would die. He looked at her and she looked back, and he smiled a bit and asked if she liked it. She nodded: anthem of her life, sell an album make a million and she would still be falling with the music, and this time the rope wouldn't snap taut but snap in twain. "You didn't play that way at the bar."

"I don't play this way for anyone but myself," he replied. He got up from the bench and went to the kitchen, grabbing a beer and drinking deep. "Anyone who's at a bar at three in the morning is there to be drunk. I don't want people getting any more drunk they already are due to my playing. He took another drink and smiled. "Point in case. Besides: you saw what happened when I played _Für Elise. _I was so drunk I was myself for a few minutes there. People do strange things when they hear the good stuff, let alone when they're drunk. People are themselves then, they react as human beings…"

She nodded a bit and reached for her own blouse, draped across the headboard, pale pink the flush on his cheeks. "Who taught you?"—as if she'd know a name.

He gave a little laugh. "Myself. Never cared for the old lady teachers; they all stunk of grandchildren. I always hated children, they never behaved like children at all, always pretending they were adults."

She frowned, but he couldn't see it: her head was bent as she did up the buttons, fingers thick with the hangover. He watched her; ivory into rose and out again. Was she a child to him, with her small body and naïve speech?—she couldn't tell. "I heard someone play like you once."

He leaned against the wall; his skin was pale, so pale it could have been death, all up his concave belly and his thin back. "If you're looking for someone you have an entire red light district to go through, no place for a lady like you." He scrutinized her with those pale eyes; she blushed. "Or perhaps that's it exactly."

"He has blue eyes."

"So does most of France. The Germans never did hate us as much as they should have, damn Aryans."

"—you'd know if you saw them, they're blue, real blue—"

He stopped and took a drink, as thoughtful as cheap beer can be. "I think I know. One of those rich boys with more money than brains—but no, this one had brains, he had it all, I don't know why he bothered—"

Last button: she did it carefully, then looked at the floor, trying to find some will within herself to leave it all and let be a final time—but she never was the sort to stop, like a rolling stone, just another unknown, trying to find reason when, in fact, there was nothing but circuitous paths to follow, round and round they go, where they stop nobody knows— "When?"

"—_never_," he said, and gave another little laugh and he drew at the beer and then said without the smile and the bottle thrown under the piano: "A while ago. I don't remember; he comes and goes. I never know whether I'm drunk or not."

"Did he come with a—friend?"

He nodded, sitting down at the bench, back towards the piano. "French girl. No, no _ménage à trois_, thank you. I was raised a Catholic; I don't say the rosaries, but some things stay on, you know?"

"I see."

He stretched out his legs and crossed his arms across his bare chest and she could sense the irritation growing in him, fast and bright like an allergy to righteousness. "What were you? Catholic girl, Protestant—no one sleeps with a pianist who's pure. You've already fallen from whatever divine heights you still fancy yourself on. Are you married? You don't have a ring, but I've known them where they put it in the purse for things like this, and put it back on right before they leave so I can see and they tell their husbands they were out late with the girls—I've seen a lot. Don't tell me you're perfect or that you're above me, since you're not—you listened to me play, and if you listened to him you'd be falling too—I've seen a lot, I've certainly seen you. Some people hear something and they're never the same again and they'll search for it their entire lives because that's all they have."

Her eyes strayed to the piano. Artemis had performed in France, before, when he was only the blue-eyed boy, he had played Schumann in Paris—"What instrument did he play?"

He looked confused. "The piano, of course."

* * *

All segment before this are now updated. Natasha has done up to segment three, and I've gone back and done some polishing. Hope it looks all shiny now. :) 


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